Amy Tan Quotes

I don't even know who I am. All I know is that I am the sibling, daughter, sister, the friend of somebody, and I need to know who I am outside of that.

The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself you will always be someone else. Become yourself.

Some people spend their whole lives looking for themselves, yet our self is the one thing we surely cannot lose (how like a cheap philosopher I am become, staying in this benighted place). From the moment we are conceived it is the pattern in our blood and our bones are printed through with it like sticks of seaside rock. Nora, on the other hand, says that she’s surprised anyone knows who they are, considering that every cell and molecule in our bodies has been replaced many times over since we were born.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that's not easy.

There's nothing particularly unique about my experiences except that they're my experiences.

What you are is a question only you can answer.

I think that we're all continually searching for who we are, and that's ever-evolving and changing.

Everyone at a point in their life is struggling to find out who they are and where they belong.

Everyone goes through that time in their life when they're trying to figure out who they are, find their own purpose and their own way.

'Days Before Rodeo' is just the journey of me finding out who I am.

As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.

Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

When we're growing up there are all sorts of people telling us what to do when really what we need is space to work out who to be.

One is made by all the things around one. There are many things that have made one. For a writer to go around looking for things that have made him is asking for trouble. It's like giving a character to yourself. Can't do it. Can't do it. These things are just there. Is that enough?

My personality doesn't interest me.

I'm not interested in nostalgia; I'm interested in who I am.

People have to learn who they are - you can't have somebody else telling you who you are.

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.

For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find.

I want to challenge people to find out who they are.

The ultimate mystery is one's own self.

It took me a while to find myself.

I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

People want to know more about me. They want to know who I am.

Figure out who you are.